As former Alameda Research CEO Caroline Ellison gains more attention, a report shows that Ellison has hired Wilmerhale partner Stephanie Avakian, a lawyer who worked for the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The news follows leaked documentation of Ellison’s alleged fringe position, with the former Alameda boss reportedly spotted at a cafe in Soho.
Ex-Alameda Research Exec Reportedly Represented by Former SEC Official
Recently, FTX co-founder and former CEO Sam Bankman-Fried (SBF) said he was “willing to testify” on December 13, 2022, before the US House Committee on Financial Services. Meanwhile, members of the media and crypto community have been focused on the whereabouts of former Alameda Research CEO Caroline Ellison.
The ex-Alameda boss has been silent since the FTX collapse and was once believed to be in Hong Kong. Speculators too reported on November 26 that Ellison reportedly left Hong Kong and fled to Dubai, but these reports were not confirmed. More recently, an FTX insider shared a purported document linked to Ellison that showed a negative FTX margin balance of around $1.3 billion in May 2022.
Additionally, a Twitter account called Autism Capital tweeted that Ellison may have been spotted at a Manhattan cafe with the FTX team’s office dog, Gopher. This weekend, Bloomberg reported that sources say Stephanie Avakian, a partner at the white-shoe Wilmerhale law firm, is representing the former Alameda CEO.
“Stephanie Avakian, [a] former chief of enforcement at the Securities and Exchange Commission, Ellison, along with other attorneys at her firm, represents [Wilmerhale]according to people familiar with the matter,” Bloomberg’s Ava Benny-Morrison wrote on Dec. 10, 2022.
The news follows reports that detailed SBF reportedly retained attorney Mark Cohen, the attorney who represented Ghislaine Maxwell during her recent sex trafficking case. SBF’s new lawyer was revealed by SBF’s spokesperson, Mark Botnick. As for Ellison’s alleged attorney, Avakian, the attorney became a partner at the Wilmerhale law firm in 2020. The attorney has been involved in high-profile litigation related to Tesla’s Elon Musk, Ripple Labs, and General Electric.
Stephanie Avakian is a former US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) enforcement director. Avakian left the SEC role in 2020 to join Wilmerhale, but during her time with the SEC, she worked on the enforcement of initial coin offerings (ICOs) starting in 2017.
According to Bloomberg and New York Post reporters, representatives from the Wilmerhale law firm have not commented on reports of Ellison’s apparent representation. If the reports of SBF and Ellison’s alleged legal representation are true, the two have managed to retain two prestigious lawyers to defend them.
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What do you think of the report that says Caroline Ellison has reportedly retained high-profile attorney Stephanie Avakian? Let us know what you think about this topic in the comments section below.
Jamie Redman
Jamie Redman is the news editor at Bitcoin.com News and a financial technology journalist living in Florida. Redman has been an active member of the cryptocurrency community since 2011. He has a passion for Bitcoin, open source and decentralized applications. Since September 2015, Redman has written more than 6,000 articles for Bitcoin.com News about the disruptive protocols emerging today.
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